As any dedicated follower of the incredibly popular Pokemon franchise can attest to, the odds of catching a monster that features different colors than usual (classified as 'shiny' Pokemon) are incredibly low. Only 1 in 8,192 encounters will result in a shiny creature appearing, effectively making these Pocket Monsters heavily sought after and incredibly valuable amongst the series' user base.

Once in a while, however, The Pokemon Company offers fans a chance to secure one of these off-colored beasts, and this time the opportunity will be available through yet another promotion with GameStop.

The promotion will see the Legendary monsters from Pokemon Diamond, Pokemon Pearl, and Pokemon Platinum — Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina, respectively — made available in their coveted shiny forms. All gamers have to do to secure these creatures is mosey into a GameStop beginning Monday, August 19th and they'll be able to download the first creature absolutely free; provided they have a DS/3DS handheld and a copy of either Pokemon Black, Pokemon White, Pokemon Black 2, or Pokemon White 2.

Pokemon GameStop Shiny Palkia Dialga Giratina

The windows in which Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina will be up for grabs can be seen below:

  • Shiny Dialga: Monday, August 19th, 2013—Sunday, September 8th, 2013
  • Shiny Palkia: Monday, September 9th, 2013—Sunday, September 29th, 2013
  • Shiny Giratina: Monday, September 30th, 2013—Sunday, October 20th, 2013

Meanwhile, residents of Canada and the UK can look forward to a slightly different schedule. Canadians will be able to download each shiny Legendary at participating EB Games stores, while resident of the United Kingdom can capture them at GAME outlets. The availability windows for each creature are available below:

  • Shiny Dialga: Friday August 30th, 2013 — Thursday September 12th, 2013
  • Shiny Palkia: Friday September 13th, 2013 — Thursday September 26th, 2013
  • Shiny Giratina: Friday September 27th, 2013 — Friday October 11th 2013

This entire promotion is being done to start building hype for the newest franchise installments, both of which will be hitting the Nintendo 3DS this October. Pokemon X and Y will be the first games from the core Pocket Monster series to make their way to the 3DS, and they'll feature a copious amount of new features. In the meantime, though, trainers will definitely want to secure the shiny variants of Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina, as they'll undoubtedly come in handy when the 3DS version hits store shelves — provided users can transfer their pokes.

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Pokemon X and Pokemon Y will be available on October 12th, exclusively on Nintendo 3DS.

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